WHY DOES NOBODY TELL ME THESE THINGS
by EvilFuzzy9
Summary: Tokka Week 2013 is here, and for the first time ever I, EvilFuzzy9, will be participating. ...yeah, I dunno what took me so long, either. BUT THIS TIME I WILL NOT MISS IT. Now I suppose I should actually try and think of a more interesting summary than this mess. Um... Er... CRUD. [Here be Tokka]
1. SHELTER

**WHY DOES NOBODY TELL ME THESE THINGS**

Tokka Week 2013 drabbles

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

A/N: FFFFFUUU TOKKA WEEK STARTS TODAY NOBODY TOLD ME THIS WHYY BLARGH

Against all odds, this is somehow my first Tokka week. As of right now, at the time of writing this sentence, I have two hours and twenty-six minutes (approximately) before I have to leave for work, after which I will be too tired to right. And I already spent a lot of creative juices on the most recent chapter of _Unexpected Aftermath_ (which is_ like_ Tokka, except fused with Sukka).

*dons sunglasses*

IT'S ON.

* * *

**Prompt One:**

**SHELTER**

Sometimes even _Toph_ needed somewhere she could rest, safe away from the rest of the world. Sometimes even she just wanted to curl up into a ball and get away from it all.

Luckily, she had her own private sanctuary, one that kept out all of the world's troubles. It was a place where she could sleep peacefully, warm, safe. In this place, all stress, all weariness melted from her like so much frost in the summer sun.

Here, she was safe, as safe as she ever needed to be. It was her home away from home, her shelter from all of the bad things in the world.

It was so warm and firm and _wonderful_.

Toph Bei Fong, Chief of the Republic City Police Department, all but _purred_ as she curled up in her lover's arms, nuzzling her head into his broad, bare chest.

It had been a long, hard, _awful_ day down at the station, and she knew that the Councilman had not had it any better. The triads were getting bolder by the day, and there were reports of a new leader in Republic City's underworld, a man pulling the strings of virtually every gang on the streets. Both of them were being run ragged trying to get to the bottom of it all, trying to put a stop to things before they escalated any further.

The burden of their respective responsibilities weighed heavily on their shoulders, and they were all but at their wit's end trying to keep this city they had worked _so hard_ to establish from falling apart at the seams, and yet...

And yet, lying there in their bed, wrapped tight in one another's arms, neither one of them had a care in the world.

For now, they were safe from every care. When morning came, they knew, they would toss themselves once more into the breach, and there was no guarantee that they would all come out of this alive.

But for now, at least, they had each other. For now, at least, they could shelter themselves from the storm that was brewing, lying there in one another's arms: Chief Bei Fong and Councilman Sokka.

* * *

A/N: This was short and (hopefully) sweet, but maybe tomorrow it'll be a little longer? Who knows?

I sure don't. XD

**TTFN and R&R!**

– — ❤


	2. SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE

**WHY DOES NOBODY TELL ME THESE THINGS**

Tokka Week 2013 drabbles

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

A/N: Here is the next prompt, for day two of Tokka week! This is one more firmly T-rated than the previous one, but not so much so that I would feel compelled to up this fic's rating. Not really.

Also, it's much more on the funny side of things, justifying the _humor_ half of this fic's _romance/humor_ classification. :P

* * *

**Prompt Two:**

**SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE**

"Seriously, Snoozles?"

"What?" said Sokka, turning to face Toph – and Toph it was, for she was the only one to ever call him that.

"This is probably the _worst_ plan I have _ever_ heard," said the young woman, her misty green eyes facing ahead sightlessly into the shadows. "And that's saying a _lot_."

Sokka snorted.

"You're just saying that because you have to wear a dress," he retorted.

Toph, grabbing a handful of the fine, silken material that fell down her legs, simply replied with, "Like I said: _worst plan ever._ Nobody will buy it. Not even _Twinkletoes._"

Sokka scoffed. "Nonsense," he said. "As long as you play your part, nobody will suspect a _thing_."

"Of _course_ they will," Toph replied cynically. "I don't _do_ girly, Meathead. It just isn't me. They'll see right through it."

"You're just being a pessimist," Sokka responded. "They'll see what they want to see. They won't question a thing."

"_Wow_, Snoozles," said Toph. "Do you even _hear_ yourself talk? Seriously, you should be careful Twinkletoes doesn't try to bend you, with all that _hot air_ you're blowing." _  
_

Sokka scowled. "Oh, _ha ha_," he laughed sarcastically. "Like _you _had any _better_ ideas."_  
_

Toph's ears turned bright red.

"I_ still_ say it would've worked, if you'd just _stuck with the plan,_" she sniped back.

"_No way_," Sokka rejoined. "I have my _dignity_, thank you very much!"

"What, and I _don't?_" Toph inquired bitterly, running a hand down the uncomfortably fancy dress she was wearing.

"There's nothing undignified about wearing a dress," Sokka replied, before quickly adding: "Not for _you_, at least. You _are_ a girl, after all, even if you hardly ever _act_ the part."

Toph scowled darkly.

"Stupid boobs," she muttered bitterly, taking hold of the globes of flesh in question through the thin, soft fabric of her dress. "What are you even _good_ for?"

Sokka's face turned beet red, and he forced himself to tear his gaze away from the decidedly _interesting _spectacle Toph was making.

"I dunno," he spluttered unthinkingly, decidedly flustered by what he had just seen. "I think they look good on you," he remarked _oh so intelligently_.

Toph delicately quirked a single, thin black eyebrow in Sokka's general direction.

"_Wow_," she said, sounding almost disbelieving. "Did you _really _just say that?"

Sokka's blush deepened, to the extent that Toph could pick up on the physical cues of it even without her sight.

"Er... Uh... W-well, they _do!_" he stammered anxiously, focusing very hard on a spot on the floor between his feet as his face practically _glowed _in the gloom, ears pink and cheeks erubescent. He was just grateful that Toph could not see his face at that moment. "I-I mean... er... that dress looks _very_ good on you..." he mumbled, abashed.

Soft, enticing lips tilted up in a smirk. "_Really_, now. You _don't say._"

Toph chuckled smugly, beginning to sway her hips teasingly as she sashayed over to her partner in crime. Sokka's eyes were transfixed as he watched the flowing alabaster silk of her dress flow and swirl around smooth, pale, leanly-muscled legs that he could envision all too well in his mind's eye.

The Water Tribesman's lips felt suddenly very dry, and his heart felt like it was caught in his throat, beating in his ears like a thunderous taiko drum. His face grew hot as Toph slowly, teasingly, closed the distance between the two of them, and his hands were slick with sweat as he watched her sensuous, graceful approach.

Toph was still smirking, even when her face got within mere inches of Sokka's, and her lips looked _so_ sweet and inviting that almost Sokka could not hold himself back from stealing a kiss. _Almost._

But somehow, he managed to restrain himself, even when Toph drew so close that he could all but _feel _the warmth of her body against his – and he could help but shiver a little at the way her eyes stared right through, as though in their blindness they saw something that none other could.

Sokka licked his lips unconsciously, and almost against his will he felt his head tilting forward – _their lips were so close: __just a little bit more, and they would be kissing _– his eyes closing as he leaned in to—

That was when Toph punched him on the arm.

"Better luck _next time_, Snoozles," he heard her tauntingly remark, and even with his eyes tightly shut – this time clenched against the pain that shot through his unfortunate limb – he could still perfectly envision the wide, shit-eating grin on Toph's face as she sniggered at _how he was so gullible and predictable_.

He could not help the smile that came onto his face at this, nor the laughter that pealed from his throat in harmony with Toph's chortles.

_She really was the same as ever_, he thought.

He liked that about her.

* * *

A/N: I think I like how this one turned out. Those two really are such a pair. XD

**TTFN and R&R!**

– — ❤


	3. TRADITION

**WHY DOES NOBODY TELL ME THESE THINGS**

Tokka Week 2013 drabbles

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

A/N: Woke up today with a bit of a light headache and some extra-loud tinnitus, but that ain't enough to stay me from my task. Nay! For, verily, I shall gladly persevere through any hardship to bring to you, the people, the fruits of my blah blah fancy words I am getting bored with this shtick, now.

ON WITH THE SHOW.

* * *

**Prompt Three:**

**TRADITION**

Everyone has their own little habits, small idiosyncracies and personal traditions. Human beings are creatures of habit, after all. We are comforted by familiar routines, mundane rituals ingrained into our psyches over the length of a lifetime.

We all have our own little traditions. Some people might always order the same thing when dining out, while others might always wear a certain outfit when meeting up with friends or family, and still others might share the same story with the same people a hundred times and again and still get the same reactions every time.

We all have our rituals – small, silly things we do for no discernible reason other than that we have always done them as long as we can remember. And if we have our way, we will _continue_ to do them even until the day we die, old and decrepit and scarcely able to stand under our own power. They comfort us, help us feel in control.

And we _need_ to feel in control.

Everyone has their own little habits. Even people like Toph and Sokka.

_Especially_ people like Toph and Sokka.

"Hey, Toph!" Sokka called out, from where his feet were sticking out from under a brobdignagian mass of nuts and bolts and iron scraps. "Mind handing me that wrench over there on the table?"

"Aye aye, Captain Boomerang," Toph replied, snapping off a sarcastic salute. With a flick of her wrist, she used her metalbending to levitate the tool in question off of the metal worktable and across the room to where Sokka was working on his latest pet project.

It was a rare day off for the two of them – both were usually very busy these days, doing there best to clean up the mess that been left behind by Yakone and his gang, so it had been a while since they'd been able to get together like this and just hang out.

"Thanks, Toph," came Sokka's voice, echoing from underneath the great metal hulk.

"No problem," replied the off-duty police chief, casually leaning her back against the wall.

She was dressed in old, dirty, heavily-patched clothes that maybe didn't fit her quite as well as they used to – or maybe fit _too well_, as Sokka had rather suggestively put it, earning him a blind eye-roll and a smack on the forehead.

"What_ is_ that thing you're working on, anyways?" she inquired curiously after a moment of silence. "I can't make heads or tails of it..."

"Y'remember that kid I was telling you about last time we got together?" she heard him say. "You know, the shoe shiner?"

"That Roachy boy?"

"_Hiroshi_, Toph," Sokka corrected her. There was a squeaking noise as he tightened a bolt on the underside of the iron monstrosity. "Hiroshi Sato."

The Republic City Chief of Police hummed thoughtfully. "Was he the one with that crazy idea for... what did you call it? An 'auto-mobile?'"

"Yup," said Sokka. Then there was a squeak and a POP, and Sokka cursed. "_Blizzard blasted bolt!_" he swore, a clatter arising as he tried to retrieve the offending object only to bang his head on the underside of his project, causing several more parts to fall from it in the musical ring of metal-on-metal-on-stone. "Confound it! Stay in place, you dratted thing!"

Toph snickered.

"_Seriously_, Meathead?" she inquired amusedly. "'_Confound it?_'"

She could feel the physiological cues of a blush in Sokka's body, and she heard him sigh.

"Katara's been getting on my case about swearing," he explained, sounding sheepish. "Apparently, she heard Bumi call Kya the B-word, and _naturally_ she assumes that _I_ was the one he learned it from."

"Well, _were_ you?"

"Well, yeah. Of _course_," Sokka replied nonchalantly. "I'm his _uncle_, after all – it's, like, my _sworn duty_ to be a bad influence on the little guy."

Toph chortled at this.

"Yeah, that's true," she agreed amicably. "Not like Sugar Queen or Twinkletoes are willing to teach their kids those important life lessons."

"Too true," Sokka chorused. "Of course, I never intended for him to use that kind of language on his _sister_," he added, sounding somewhat disapproving.

"Who _did_ you intend for him to use it on, then?" asked Toph.

She felt Sokka's shoulders move against the stone floor of his workstation as he shrugged.

"_You_, obviously," he replied, as though this were the most obvious thing in the world.

Toph laughed at this. "Teaching your nephew to call your girlfriend a bitch? _Classy_."

"Hey, I'm a classy guy," Sokka replied, and she could _hear_ the grin in his tone.

"Yeah," Toph dryly remarked. "You simply _ooze_ class and sophistication."

"Yup," he replied. "I'm the absolute _ooziest_."

Toph snorted.

_What a dork._

* * *

A/N: Another very banter-heavy one. But then, that's like _half the_ _fun _of Tokka, innit? XD

**TTFN and R&R!**

– — ❤


	4. AT LAST

**WHY DOES NOBODY TELL ME THESE THINGS**

Tokka Week 2013 drabbles

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

A/N: Here's prompt number four, _At Last_. Or, as you could also interpret it in the context of this update, _atla st_: _avatar the last airbender sexual tension_. :P

I'll probably have to bump up the rating because of this XD

* * *

**Prompt Four:**

**AT LAST**

Wait and listen. That was the essence of neutral jing, the core principle of earthbending. Toph knew this well.

Her element was as much one of _patience_ as it was of perseverance and pertinacity. To bend the earth was to bend the unbending. It was not a feat accomplished by the weak-willed or fickle. You had to be ready and able to follow it through to the end. You had to stick to what you were doing, keep at it without yielding. Only then could you be expected to bend the unbending earth, to move the immovable stone.

Earthbending was not an art of quick movements and immediate results. Oh, you could certainly kick rocks up off the ground and punch them at your enemy, if you had zero skill and even less creativity, but the truly **great** earthbenders were those who learned to _wait_ and _listen_ for the right moment to strike.

Earth was the element of patience. A mountain could stand unchanged for a thousand lives of men. Only a very great force applied all at once could be hoped to swiftly alter the face of the land – otherwise it was the work of eons of erosion and tectonic movements.

The earth existed on a whole other scale than humans. A century was scarcely even the blink of an eye. Entire generations could pass by unmarked, for what were they to something so grand and vast and _lasting_ as the firmament?

No, to become one with the earth, you needed _patience_. You needed to wait and listen. To simply allow yourself to _be_. Earthbenders did not match their pace to that of the enemy – they moved only when they needed to, only when they _chose _to. Earth could not match air or fire or water for speed, but all you needed was one solid blow to change the course of a battle. You needed to wait patiently and line up your strike for the exact right moment, carefully follow your enemy's every move, anticipate what they would do next, and time your blows down to the second.

And Toph Bei Fong knew that this could apply to much more than just earthbending. Even with as headstrong and brash as she was, she understood the necessity of patience. Even as young as she was, she knew when it was best to wait and listen.

Not even the earth was wholly unchanging, she understood. Just because something was one way today did not mean it would be the same way tomorrow.

Neutral jing was powerful in its own way. As long as you were patient, as long as you persevered with unfailing diligence, even the seemingly impossible could become all too possible. You just needed to watch patiently for the right moment to strike. After all, "_Good things come to those who wait._"

And when she had to, Toph could wait for _years. _

Patience was a virtue. In all things, you simply had to wait for an opening, then make your move.

Toph put a hand on her friend's shoulder in a comforting gesture. She could feel his frame trembling beneath her fingers. She could hear him heaving and moaning as he wept. He was miserable, his heart was in pieces.

_He needed her._

Over a decade had passed since the end of the war, since she and Sokka had all but parted ways, since he had left them all to be with Suki. Toph had been upset by this, at first, but with time she got over it, even if she never really got over _him_.

But still, Toph had long gotten over her bitterness at this choice of his. She had lived her life for years without him, happy and content after her own, rambunctious fashion. Her feelings for him never died out, entirely, but she was not the sort to pine helplessly. She did not let this unrequited love rule her life.

No, she had lived her life to the fullest, these past ten-and-some years. She had loved and lost, and made friends and memories. She had been in more than a few relationships over the years, and while none of them had lasted very long, most had ended well enough. There had been a few bad times, dark times, but she had always pulled through in the end. She had learned from the pain, and grown as a person.

She was not a child anymore. No longer did she begrudge Sokka his choice to go with Suki – he had loved her, after all, and he _still_ loved her, in some way. Toph, as she had been back then, simply could not have given Sokka what he had needed in a relationship. He had needed the love of a woman, not a little girl's crush.

No, Toph did not hold any bitter feelings toward Sokka. Not anymore. She was too mature now to be so _petty_, as strange as the notion was to her. She had been through too much over the past decade to think any less of him for the choice he had made.

Besides, any lingering ill will she might have held towards him would have evaporated, anyways, the moment he appeared on the doorstep of the Bei Fong Metalbending Academy, wretched and miserable and reeking of alcohol.

No, she could not begrudge Sokka his past choices. Not now. He was in a dark place, and he was heartbroken. Suki had left him – had broken off a relationship of more than ten years, just like that. He was in a terrible way, he needed support._  
_

And Toph was happy to give this to him. Because even after ten years, she still had feelings for him – not the soft, idle crush of a preteen girl, no, it was something much deeper and more profound. Just as she had grown, so too had her feelings. She was a woman now.

Sokka still needed a woman's love.

But this time Toph was able to give it to him.

And once it got going, Sokka gave back just as much.

* * *

A/N: Wow, this went in a _way_ different direction from what I had been expecting when I wrote the a/n up top. It's nice though, I think. A more mature look, perhaps, at how a Tokka relationship could work out. Toph just has to wait and listen for the right moment to "strike" ;)

...although now that I have finished writing this chapter, I doubt I will have to up the rating after all, even _with_ the implied smexytimes at the end there. XP

**TTFN and R&R!**

– — ❤


	5. EMBER ISLAND

**WHY DOES NOBODY TELL ME THESE THINGS**

Tokka Week 2013 drabbles

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

A/N: Okay, this chapter will _definitely_ be the one that forces me to up the rating. XD

* * *

**Prompt Five:**

**EMBER ISLAND**

"I _hate_ sand," Toph muttered, tugging at the bikini bottom of the Fire Nation-style swimsuit gifted to her by Ty Lee, worrying at the uncomfortably thin swatch of cloth in a futile attempt to lessen the coarse, gritty wedgie it was currently giving her.

Sokka, sitting next to Toph in naught but a white loincloth, chuckled in spite of himself as he watched the small, white waves gently lap at the beach's black, volcanic sand.

"Really? I figured you would love it," he remarked teasingly. "It's _earth_, after all, isn't it?"

Toph scowled.

"_Earth_ doesn't get in my butt-crack and rub everything raw," she retorted irritably, continuing to tug at the sides of her far-too-small bikini bottom. "I swear, I won't be able to sit down for a _week _once this is over."

"You weren't complaining last time."

"_Last time_ I was wearing something with more fabric than your average handkerchief," she replied. "Seriously, how can Ty Lee _stand_ going out in stuff like this? I feel practically _naked._"

Sokka, who was basically just a fuzzy blob to Toph at the moment – another reason to hate this mud-dammed sand! – gave a shrug that the blind earthbender was only_ barely _able to pick up on.

"She likes showing off what she was born with, I guess," he said.

"I find it hard to believe that she was _born_ with those melons dangling from her chest," Toph bluntly replied, causing Sokka to flush a bit.

"Um... Er... W-well, maybe not _born _born with," Sokka corrected himself, "but they're certainly a... erm, _gift_..." He gulped, his throat feeling suddenly rather dry.

The teen-aged earth and metalbender sitting next to him simply snorted.

"Like the gift that keeps on giving," she snidely remarked, recalling the last time Ty Lee had been at the beach with them. "_Eh_, Snoozles?"

She smirked.

Sokka's blush grew deeper, and he found his eyes being drawn very much against his will to Toph's own chest, which had _certainly_ developed over the past few years. The Fire Nation might have been able to boast some finely blossomed beauties – Sokka still could scarcely believe that Azula had had the body she had at the age of _thirteen _– but Toph had certainly grown up in a very respectable way, herself.

He nervously cleared his throat.

"Well, it's not like she's the _only_ one..." he mumbled, feeling a little awkward talking about something like this, even with someone as close as Toph was.

After all, he _had_ only just recently broken up with Suki for the third time in the past year – in fact, that had actually been the original impetus for his and Toph's spur of the moment trip to Ember Island.

Toph's smirk widened, and she even stopped fussing with her distractingly tiny bikini bottom. Sokka had a feeling that the girl knew _perfectly well_ where his gaze was currently focused, especially with the way she immediately made a show of raising her arms over her head and _stretching_, arching her back in a way that caused her breasts to react very interestingly.

Sokka _really_ hoped that Toph didn't notice the reaction this elicited from his little buddy. He was just glad that there was no one else present on this stretch of beach to see the growing... _ehem_... down there.

"Tell me more," Toph all but purred, speaking in a tone which suggested that she knew _exactly_ what was running through her friend's mind at that moment.

Belatedly, Sokka noticed for the first time just how _close_ they were sitting to one another.

He licked his lips, which were feeling uncomfortably dry.

"That swimsuit looks _very_ good on you," he said at last, trying not to focus overmuch on how _little_ it left to the imagination.

"Oh?" said Toph, looking quite smug. "In what way?"

"It... really emphasizes how, uh... how much you've... er... _grown_..." he answered awkwardly, giving the back of his neck a sheepish scratch.

In the back of his mind, he noted that the skin there felt unusually hot to the touch.

Toph appeared to preen at this, looking decidedly self-satisfied at how flustered Sokka sounded. She was having _far_ too much fun torturing him for it to be entirely healthy, but she didn't care.

"You're not half bad, yourself," she replied, scooting closer to him. There was a playful smirk on her face as she leaned just a little bit into his firm, sculpted body. He was hard as a rock, she noted – in more ways than one.

Unbidden, Sokka felt one of his arms wrap around Toph's body – _since when was she so soft?_ – and pull her even closer to him. Part of him was aware that he was being foolish and impulsive, as he leaned in to plant a kiss on his best friend's lips, but the rest of him couldn't really bring itself to care.

Not even when the kiss deepened, eagerly reciprocated by the headstrong young woman. Nor even when they found their swimsuits being cast aside into the black, volcanic sands.

If this was wrong, then they didn't want to be right.

* * *

A/N: DISCLAIMER: Sex on the beach is one of two things: either a type of alcoholic beverage, or a bad idea. Sand gets everywhere. And I do _mean_ everywhere.

...not that I'm actually speaking from personal experience on either part, but it's still good advice.

**TTFN and R&R!**

– — ❤


	6. TIME

**WHY DOES NOBODY TELL ME THESE THINGS**

Tokka Week 2013 drabbles

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

A/N: This one is pretty short. Also, I seem to be jumping all over the place with the characters ages. XD

* * *

**Prompt Six:**

**TIME**

Perspective was a funny thing, Sokka mused. When you were young, twenty minutes could seem like an unbearably long time, yet at his age it could feel so short. There was so little that could get done within such a brief span of time, and more often than not periods of thrice that length could pass by all but unmarked.

To him, twenty minutes was a short amount of time, something that passed all too soon. But to the young child sitting before him, "twenty minutes" might as well have been "twenty_ years_"._  
_

Lin was pouting as she sat in the high, wooden chair, her arms crossed petulantly over her chest as she pointedly refused to meet the eyes of the only father she had ever known. Her legs were swinging back and forth, feet dangling barely past the halfway point of the chair-legs.

The six year old was in _timeout_, and she was NOT happy about it.

Sokka, out of the corner of his eye, checked the clock on the wall.

_Not even seven minutes yet._

He resisted the urge to crack a smile at his stepdaughter's impatience. She was being punished, after all, and he had to keep up a front of disapproval. He could hardly let her know that he had been _amused_ by her actions.

In the next room, he could hear the muffled sound of little Tenzin's sniffling as Katara tended to her son's injury. It was far from serious, but Sokka's sister was nothing if not motherly. She was extremely protective of her children, and she especially doted on her youngest.

Apparently Lin could hear the sounds too, because a dark look briefly passed over her face.

"Hey," said Sokka, biting back a grin. "You know what you did was _wrong_, right?"

Lin snorted.

"He was being a_ baby_," she replied, looking entirely unapologetic.

"He kind of _is_ one, though," her stepfather said. "He's only _four_, after all."

"Four-and-a-_half_," Lin retorted. "That's what he said to _me_. He said he wasn't a baby anymore, but I proved him wrong."

Sokka nearly sighed at this. Briefly, he almost wondered if _Toph_ had been this bad when _she_ was Lin's age, but then he remembered the circumstances under which his wife had spent her childhood. She'd probably never had a _chance_ to act like that. Not until she ran away with them.

He felt a twinge of pity for his wife at that moment, not that he would ever tell her as much. She would probably take it as an insult, with how proud she was.

She also probably would have found Lin's misdeeds quite amusing, but that was another matter entirel.

Sokka shook his head.

"How would you have liked it if Bumi or Kya had punched _you?_" he asked her.

"I would have punched them right back," Lin answered plainly, causing the councilman to sigh. "_I'm_ not a whiny little baby."

_Just like her mother_, he thought. _Almost u__ncannily so._

Still, though, Toph had always been the better of the two of them when it came to disciplining Lin, ironically enough. Sokka was not much of a disciplinarian when it came to that green eyed little devil in koala-sheep's clothing. It was a little weird to think of his longtime partner in crime being _the responsible one_, but then as Chief of Police she kind of _had_ to be.

It was still weird, though.

Sokka gave the clock another glance, and he sighed.

_Still eleven more minutes before she's due back home._

Hopefully Lin's mother would do a better job of chastising the girl. But until then, Sokka intended to keep her in time out.

Even if he _really_ didn't want to.

It was funny, the way time seemed to move slower the faster you wanted it to pass.

_Just ten more minutes._

* * *

A/N: I imagine Sokka would be a big old softy when it comes to discipline. He just strikes me as someone who would be more along the lines of "Just you wait until your _mother_ gets home!" XP

**TTFN and R&R!**

– — ❤


	7. REALITY

**WHY DOES NOBODY TELL ME THESE THINGS**

Tokka Week 2013 drabbles

By

EvilFuzzy9

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A/N: This is the darkest and angstiest of all the prompts I have written for Tokka Week, hands down. Seemed appropriate, and it certainly felt like it would be a more creative execution of 'REALITY' than something like, say, a modern day AU. *coughcough*

Also, Toph and Sokka are in this one probably the youngest they've been in all of the prompts yet, as this is set maybe a year or two after the original series finale, at most.

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**Prompt Seven:**

**REALITY**

They didn't know, exactly, when the nightmares first started.

Perhaps it was in the aftermath of the post-war celebrations, when the high of _victory_ began to fade, leaving them with the sudden, sharp awareness of just _what_ they had done. Maybe it was when they met up with Zuko at the coronation ceremony, and he was unable to look them in the eye, casualty reports and funerals weighing heavily on his mind.

Maybe it was when they were first confronted by the mourners, the anguished family members of the deceased. Or perhaps it was when they traveled to Wulong Forest searching for Boomerang and Space Sword, only to come across the twisted, charred hulks of the airships, and the mangled corpses that Toph could sense _trapped_ beneath the great steel beams and struts.

The _hundreds_ of corpses.

After that, for certain, they became aware of the nightmares. They began waking up in the middle of the night, screaming and drenched in an icy cold sweat. They started to be haunted by the sounds of dying men and woman screaming in abject terror and mortal agony, the noises of groaning iron behemoths crashing together in a great, grinding, gnashing, screeching clamor.

They woke frequently from confused, incomprehensible dreams with the feeling of a great heat on their skin, as though they had fallen asleep in front of a roaring bonfire, the last ghostly embers of which still imbued their flesh with a painful, lingering warmth. Night terrors became the norm for them, the scrambled impressions of death and destruction and the horrors of war flashing constantly through their subconscious minds. In their dreams they remembered the fear of death which chilled their bones, and the trauma of _murder_ roiling hot in their guts.

They lost sleep, growing gradually gaunter and more haggard. Guilt plagued them in their waking hours, haunting them at every step. They felt blood on their hands, hot and thick and sticky, smelling so strongly of iron and death. Even the sweetest foods were like ash on their tongues, like the ashes which coated the landscape of their "greatest feat", as it was proclaimed by those around them.

After all, had they not, with the backup of but a lone Kyoshi Warrior, all but singlehandedly halted the advance of the single most powerful and advanced military force in all of recorded human history? Such an act, surely, was worthy of the only highest praises!

...Or at least so many of the Earth Kingdom's people seemed to insist. Why, even King Kuei and his Council of Five all spoke so _highly_ of them and their deeds in that final great battle of the Hundred Year War. They were proclaimed as heroes, their names cut into the imperishable stone records of Ba Sing Se, alongside the greatest of the great, the legendary champions and defenders of the Earth Kingdom throughout the uncounted millennia of its history.

They were heroes, everyone insisted, yet Toph and Sokka did not much feel the part. They were too shaken, too horrified by the _reality _of _what they had **done**_.

There was blood on their hands, the blood of hundreds. They had killed _so many_, they now understood. Dismal few had escaped alive the wrecks of the dread Fire Nation airships. So few of them survived. So _many_ simply _died. _

It was sobering, knowing that they were responsible for so much loss of life. So much more than they could ever in good conscience take pride. Not after seeing the wrecks firsthand, not after realizing in that single, terrible moment of epiphany the _reality_ of the innumerable deaths they had caused in that single battle.

It was a weight which bore even down upon them at all times, all hours. There was no respite to be gained for them in nocturnal oblivion. The nightmares followed them wherever they went – a painful, hideous reminder of their crimes.

And that was in truth how they had come to perceive their past actions. They loathed themselves for what they had done, and any attempt to justify their deeds left a taste most dreadfully bitter upon their tongues.

They ate little, and slept even less. They threw themselves into their respective duties, taking on as many responsibilities as possible, even if only to distract themselves from their own dark, hateful thoughts.

They loathed themselves, saw themselves as monsters. Their nights were filled with restless sleep and ghastly dreams, and their days were punctuated by flashbacks and panic attacks.

At times, they forgot themselves and their surroundings. Increasingly often, as the nightmares grew worse and more frequent, they would, if jarred or startled by some loud noise or sudden movement, seem to forget that the war was over – or else perhaps become trapped in waking memory of some past battle – and panic, lashing out blindly at those around them, as though attacking some unseen enemies whose presence only they could perceive.

Nobody really knew what to do with the two as these fits, these episodes, became more prevalent, and more frequent. Even the best healers in the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation and the Northern Water Tribe could do little more than prescribe sedative herbal incenses and mind-numbing elixirs to mitigate the symptoms of whatever affliction it was that so tightly gripped the pair. But these methods were only temporary solutions, at best, doing nothing to address whatever was at the _root_ of the issue.

And also, Toph and Sokka were incredibly loth to accept these so-called "remedies", hating the sensation of having their wits so dulled, of living half-awake at most, and existing with their minds swaddled in a deadening haze of numbness. They resented all of the diagnoses and medications of these unqualified leeches, loathing the pitying, condescending treatment almost more than they feared the nightmares and flashbacks.

More than once, many suggested that the two be placed in a sanitarium or asylum – for their own good, of course – but the two adamantly refused every time, and their friends did not have the heart to force this onto them. They _did_, however, insist on getting the two somewhere peaceful and quiet to live, out in the countryside, away from all the stress of their duties.

It was a small, single-story ranch house attached to a tiny plot of fallow, long-abandoned fields. Earth Kingdom in fashion, with walls and floors of stone, and a small creek running through the back-end of the property. The grounds were overgrown, choked with weeds and tall grass, and the house itself was dustier than a vegetarian's meatlocker, but something about it just made the pair feel so at home.

Here, Sokka and Toph felt, they could live in peace, at least for a while. Perhaps there was something about the very air they breathed in this place that seemed to soothe their troubled hearts, a sense of simple serenity that pervaded the homely, country stead. Maybe it was the sense of being really _free _from all of their obligations and responsibilities back in the city, of finally being able to just live at their own pace for the first time they could remember.

Or maybe it was the sense of really being in this _together_, as they lay side by side under the sole set of blankets, on the only futon, in the entire house. For the first time since the end of the war, Toph and Sokka could really _be there_ for one another, uninterrupted as they talked and joked and reminisced together, their hearts lighter than they had been in what felt like _ages_.

When they had been separated from one another by changing circumstances after the end of the war, they each had felt like they'd lost a part of themselves. But now they were brought back together, in this quiet, unassuming setting, and once again they felt really _whole_.

Perhaps this, in the end, was why Toph and Sokka were able to sleep in peace, that first night – and every one after it – just lying in each other's arms as war buddies and best friends and maybe, even then, something just a little bit _more._

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A/N: Because even when I am consciously writing angst, I will still somehow wind up with a vaguely optimistic ending. XD

This chapter, which is my final one for the first Tokka week in which I have ever participated, somehow wound up way longer than every other one, by an order of something like fifty percent even for the next longest one. It is also the most _serious_, taking a number of cues from one of my proudest works yet, _Hurt_, a Sokka and Katara sibling-bond hurt/comfort fic which really explored the idea of stuff like PTSD in the Avatar world, and the possible consequences of the whole Airship Fleet sequence in the series finale.

In some ways, even, I suppose you could maybe even take chapter this as a sort of spiritual sequel to _Hurt_, with less self-loathing and alcoholism and more Tokka-ish feels. :P

As a final word for this Tokka week, though, I think I will try to sum up my perception of Tokka as a pairing in three simple words:

_"Closer than lovers."_

**TTFN and R&R!**

– — ❤

**F I N**


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